If it’s impossible to have a perfect game, then the game that earns a perfect score is the one that is as good as we have any right to expect. I expected a lot from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. And with its beauty, scope, innovation, sheer playability, and nearly constant sense of joy and wonder, it soared beyond those expectations with ease...So yes, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild receives a perfect score, only the third I’ve given out here on Post Arcade. Now go play. It’s almost unimaginable that you will be disappointed.

The game is a fascinating study of a conflicted man who knows right from wrong, but doesn't always allow this knowledge to inform his decisions...He's a classic antihero: A bad man seemingly headed for tragedy who we nonetheless like, root for, and want to see make better choices.

With all the tweaks and additions, the current generation edition is unquestionably the best. It may not include quite enough fresh content to warrant a second purchase, but it’s certainly the edition that ought to be sought out by those yet to play...Most importantly, perhaps, it provides us with a small peephole into the future of the series.

Super Mario Odyssey is an absolute delight that will remind you why you started playing games in the first place.

Elden Ring is neither a step forward nor backward for the famed developer, but rather a shift to the side. It’s a different kind of FromSoftware game, one that mixes stampeding mounted combat in a vast world with more intimate, terrifying moments in dark caves and cramped castles. I’m having a grand time with it, make no mistake, but it’s not my favourite FromSoftware game to date.

I’m sorely tempted to review the 20th instalment in Nintendo Co. Ltd.’s 35-year-old Legend of Zelda franchise by simply giving it a perfect score and issuing a few words along the lines of “just go play this absolute gem of a game.” To give away more robs potential players of the joy of discovering its countless wonders for themselves.

Terror and beauty are potent bedfellows in The Last of Us, a masterwork of interactive entertainment conjured up by the master gamesmiths at Naughty Dog.

Columbia is a unique and unforgettable city meant to inspire its inhabitants — both virtual and player-controlled — to gaze in awe, shock, and horror at its bountiful marvels...So long as you remember to stop snooping through rubbish bins and take time to pause and look around, I have no doubt you’ll be properly amazed.

Kratos is no longer seeking revenge, but rather redemption. He feels multidimensional for the first time. As a dad, I sometimes found myself rooting for and even identifying with him on a gut level, especially as I watched him make some obvious parenting mistakes.

Ragnarök is well worth playing even if some of its callbacks fly over your head. We only get a handful of single-player games each year that deliver such high-calibre storytelling, finely tuned action, and gorgeous graphics in a single package, and Sony’s Dad of War ranks high among them once more.

The Last of Us Part II manages the striking feat of imbuing video game violence with meaning. Its combat is thrilling and darkly addictive, but this is a story about how violence changes people and rarely solves anything. The consequences of killing are made abundantly clear over and over again until, by the end, we simply no longer wanted to fight. I wanted to put down the controller as though it was a gun for which I no longer had desire to use. That's a neat trick, Naughty Dog. And one hell of an encore.

Happily, Divinity: Original Sin II successfully walks the thin line separating empowering choice and confusing chaos.

Endlessly creative, relentlessly delightful and eminently playable by all levels of player, SM3DW is perhaps the best 3D platformer released since the series’ heyday.

The real story is the one you make yourself as you play through each mission, making new decisions each time and writing an action thriller of your own making. That’s what makes Metal Gear Solid V brilliant, and that’s why people will still be talking about it years from now.

[Multiplayer is] competent, polished (I experienced a few connection problems but chalked them up to pre-launch network jitters), and reasonably entertaining. But it lacks the depth and long-term appeal of shooters that make online play their bread and butter.

I can imagine some players being disappointed that Inside is perhaps a bit too much like Limbo. From both games’ dark themes and imagery to the sorts of puzzles they offer up, there are plenty of lines to be drawn between them.

This web of interconnected systems is, in truth, a tad bewildering. But everything just seemed to keep developing and refining itself regardless of whether I knew how or why, so I never felt overwhelmed. I was just sort of along for the ride sometimes, and I didn’t really mind. Because, in the end, I just wanted to spend time with some familiar faces, listen to a new generation of artists cover some of my favourite game music, and see how a world I haven’t visited in decades had changed while I was away. I’m happy to say I had a great time catching up. And I got to stay at some lovely little B&Bs along the way.

Thing is, it injects so much dopamine into my little monkey brain that any intellectual qualms I may have are effectively quashed as long as a controller is in my hands. Put more plainly, Nintendo really knows how to make a fabulously fun run-to-the-right game.

Give it a chance – not just a couple of hours, mind, but five or ten; enough to let its claws sink in nice and deep – and you’ll probably find Bloodborne an intoxicating dose of pure masochistic pleasure.

There’s a sense of unfettered joy in everything here. It’s a game that just wants to be fun. For everyone. It aims for every moment you spend with it — be it five minutes or five hours — to be a frustration-free, jaw-dropping, reward-filled delight. And in this endeavour it succeeds marvellously. If there was ever a racing game that needs to be in every Xbox owner’s library, Forza Horizon 5 is it.

There’s enough new here that Enemy Within almost feels like a completely different game.

Demon’s Souls isn’t likely to convert many new players to this kind of game design, but fans of gruelling but gratifying game experiences are in for a treat.

Fire Emblem: Awakening won’t go down in history as the game that revolutionized a franchise or genre. However, traditional turn-based tactics has rarely been more compelling.

Super Smash Bros. for Wii U has holes that simply can’t be filled with trophies and an encyclopedic soundtrack. The customizable characters are interesting, amiibo’s have their finer points, and the multiplayer is smooth, but at its core this is a game left unchanged.

Mario Kart 8 was a great game, and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is the definitive edition of that experience. But I’m not sure it’s worth an extra 80 bucks for anyone who already owns the original.

Perhaps the most useful Wii U feature (at least for a family guy like me) is that it as a GamePad-only mode. Should your better half, roommate, brother, sister, mom, or dad wrest control of the TV from you the game will keep running on your controller’s screen.

Indeed, Dark Souls II is pretty much exactly the sort of game it wants to be.

Something much more tame, a word that should be the antithesis of the series...Game developers won’t fix what isn’t broken and to do so is taking a huge risk, but Bayonetta is a series of firsts and this game feels like it’s playing on repeat.